Day One: Blue Highways

Okay, I took 1021 pictures in four days, which I know is compulsive behavior. But I still have way too much to cram into a single post.





So here's our first day heading out with my honyocks and my Dad. We avoided the Interstates and took our time getting to Hutchinson. Dad has one of those Garmin backseat driving devices, and if you let it tell you where to go, it tells you to use the Interstate. Refuse it's commands, and it's 'Recalculating...recalculating...turn right,' a direction guaranteed to get you to the Interstate first and to your destination if it feels like it later.





But the Interstate is too much like flying: good way to cover ground, not much sense of what you're passing, who lives there and what they've been up to.





We ate lunch at the Hays House Restaurant in Council Grove, a 150 year old place that still has a bit of Old West feel to it, box beam construction and so on. Excellent food, too. I had a buffalo burger, the girls both had fried chicken (which was easily 90% of what Mo ate the entire trip). If you ever pass through Council Grove, it's definitely the place to eat.





We took 177 out of Council Grove to get to Hutch, the theory being it is supposed to be the scenic route. As you approach Hutchinson you get into some truly flat land. Kansas' status as a 'flat' state, one that is held up as a comparison for underdeveloped girls, is largely unjustified. There are parts of it that fit the description, as are parts of Oklahoma, Texas, etc. But the glaciers went pretty far down, and most of the state is rolling prairie or hills of one sort or another.





But going down Sunflower 177, I saw the best rocket fields I've seen in years. Miles between tree-lines, as flat as the stereotype.



We hadn't really had breakfast in our hurry to get on the road, and Mo devoured her chicken with gusto. In fact, at one point I thought she'd bitten the bone in half and swallowed half of it, but it turned out she just chomped off a corner of gristle. Must have been good chicken. She also devoured the skin and rib meat from her sister's chicken after cleaning her own plate in a very absolute way.





We stopped at various rail depots and small historical markers and museums, and by the time we rolled into Hutchinson, the girls were fit to be tied. Mo kept putting her foot on Em's lap, and Em kept yelling at her for it, trying to force it down on the floor. Which was so funny Mo had to do put her foot back up there, clearly delighting in torturing Sissy.



Are we there yet?





We got checked in to our motel, bought our tickets for the Cosmosphere for Saturday, our salt mine museum tickets for Sunday, and set out to find R.B.'s a hamburger stand that had been recommended. But they closed fifteen minutes before we got there, and we ended up eating at a place called Skaets. It was promising, because it was a local that clearly had the traffic of locals.



I was asked if I wanted my burger off the grill or cooked on charcoal, and it seemed a no brainer. But after tables seated after us had been served and we inquired about the whereabouts of our grub, we were told the charcoal takes longer. The burger was good, but I wouldn't have ordered it that way if I'd known I was keeping the kids waiting so long.